Marco Benevento

Slackwater News

Marco Benevento

For more than a decade pianist Marco Benevento has been amassing an extensive resume of composition and collaboration. His albums set forth a vision that connects the dots between Explosions In The Sky and Tortoise on one side, Brian Eno and Brad Mehldau on the other. In the live setting, his performances reverberate with pulsating dance rock energy, which has led to numerous high profile appearances, ranging from Carnegie Hall to Celebrate Brooklyn, Newport Jazz to All Good Festivals. Benevento has been invited to open for The Books, Ben Folds and Rubblebucket, while headlining shows from coast to coast. The 35-year old artist took a major step forward with the release of his latest album, 'TigerFace.' The ten-track collection is painted in a myriad of sonic colors, shimmering with acoustic piano, synths and analog keyboards, while the songs are seemingly conceptualized from every wisp of melody that's ever tickled his ear. Recorded by Tom Biller (Silversun Pickups) and Bryce Goggin (Pavement), 'TigerFace' features a stellar cast to help capture his ideas, including drummers Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam) and John McEntire (The Sea & The Cake), bassists Dave Dreiwitz (Ween) and Mike Gordon (Phish), saxophonist Stuart Bogie (Antibalas) and vocalist Kalmia Traver (Rubblebucket). As anybody who's seen Benevento perform can attest, with eyes closed, smile wide across his face and fingers free-flowing across the keys, the pianist is a satellite to the muse. With a devout and growing fan-base, Marco Benevento is an artist whose story is only beginning to unfold.

Press Quotes:
"Benevento jams with a concentration on the textures and colors available in his keyboards and arsenal of manipulated pedals and effects. His songs feature deceptively rich, catchy melodies and straight-ahead grooves that expand with subtle mounting gestures." - Rolling Stone

"...a musician so original that he can ultimately only be judged against his own standard." - All Music

"It's safe to say that no one sees the keyboard quite like Marco Benevento's genre-blind mashup of indie rock, jazz and skewed improvisation." - Los Angeles Times

"Marco Benevento is one of the most talented keys players of our time." - CBS

"Benevento's colorful, improvisational, piano-based compositions stretch so wide and cover so much sonic ground that the idea of genre seems quaint. Very quietly, he has been evolving into one of the most vital figures in jazz or rock or post-jazz or post-rock or, all of music." - Kansas City Pitch

"Imaginative at heart, Benevento demands you to be too when engaging with his work. Otherwise, you probably are missing out on something special. Driven to experiment with chords and melodies with the intention of getting a little dirty along the way, Benevento's collisional approach is refreshing and absolutely delightful." - Consequence of Sound

Slackwater News

With their second EP "Graveyard Mates" the Slackwater News lets fly another batch of restless songs that walk that thin line between indie-rock and freak-folk; memorable for their melodies, sweet in their harmonies, and cleverly arresting in their lyrics.

Their debut disc, "All You Creatures" earned significant regional notice as well as airplay on WXPN and other radio outlets in 2010. It drew comparisons to the likes of Dr. Dog, The Black Keys, Band of Bees, Spoon, Avett Brothers, Lumineers, and The Beatles.

This time around the group presents six songs about things like international phone calls, sharing house with polite ghosts, the oddly comforting certainty of entropy, and the equally comforting notion of spending that eternity in the ground with someone you love. "Graveyard Mates" is available for physical and digital sale on Halloween 2012.